Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

Quinn went limp, falling back against the wall but for the grip she had on Besca’s shirt. Besca caught her, lowered her to the floor as gently as she could and didn’t let her go. She was dumbstruck, which, considering how utterly wrecked this girl had been since she’d woken up, was a statement in and of itself. Eyes, eyes, what eyes?

“Quinn,” she said, softening her own voice as Quinn’s withered to a wheeze. “Whatever you saw, it was nothing, it was a dream. You’re awake now, breathe. Breathe.”

Dahlia returned, roll of towels and small red bag in hand. She knelt down beside them, handed Besca a few swabs and a bottle of strong-smelling liquid, then took Quinn’s hand in hers. “You’re okay, you’re okay. Relax. Talk to us.”

Besca wet the cotton swabs on the bottle, dabbed them lightly on Quinn’s arm, over the shallow gashes. Nothing too deep, thank god, but a whole hand’s worth of nail-work to worry about. It would sting slightly, but she wasn’t sure Quinn would even notice in her state. Blood stained her lip as well—she must have bitten her tongue, or her cheek.

What in the world was this?

“What eyes, Quinn? she asked, low, sincere. “What needs to have its eyes?”

Amygdala Circuit

“I told you, I appreciate the position you’re in, Minister Toussaint. Losing a national idol isn’t easy.”

“Losing Abroix isn’t the problem, miss Darroh. Losing him with ministerial reviews so close is tantamount to murdering my career.”

Besca took the phone away to breathe, and swallow down the urge to scream at the man on the other end. “If you’re looking for a murder charge, Jaime, that’s all well and good. But you’ve got the wrong subject. Maybe take another look at the evidence I sent you, and then you tell me who should be on the block for what happened in Hovvi?”

“He ran. From a situation you failed to prepare him for.”

“Killing civilians, RISC personnel, and pilot, she hissed. “You think Abroix’s death is killing your career? What do you think happens if that footage goes public? My predecessor ordered it seized, not me—I’m under no obligation to hold it, and frankly, if I don’t, you can expect the Runan people to be demanding repayment from Casoban.”

There was silence, and if anger weren’t burgeoning within her, she might have let herself feel smug. Eventually Toussaint spoke again, his voice thin and frustrated.

“Your predecessor,” he said. “Understood the nature of our relationship. He understood how tenuous the ties between our countries are grown.”

“What? What do you mean ‘tenuous’?

“I mean that Westwel was fifteen years ago, commander. The sentiment of international unity between us is beginning to wear. Eusero has been pushing for partnership for years, and while miss St. Senn’s abilities have been keeping our support exclusive, more and more the common citizen is starting to wonder what an affluent nation like Eusero could do for them. Our Savior programs being so interlinked will prevent that, but what do you think happens if I’m replaced with someone who doesn’t value our relationship?

“So go ahead, commander Darroh, release the footage. When the dwindling love between our people turns to fury overnight, see where that leaves you.”

It was Besca’s turn to be silent, and Toussaint gave her the same courtesy to let her find her bearings. It took some time.

“We can’t repay you for Magnifique. We’re crippled, we just can’t.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“So you need to think of something else.”

A pause, then. “I’m sorry?”

“Think of something else,” she said. “Something else we can do to reaffirm things.”

There was a shout in the next room—Quinn? It was. She was starting to learn to recognize the sound of her screams.

“Well what in the world would you suggest?”

“I don’t—uhm, what? It’s your fucking country, Toussaint, figure it out.”

A thud, heavy, frantic footsteps. Her door flew open and Quinn came barreling in, so fast she carried on right past her and into the wall.

“Quinn!”

“Quinn? Commander, who—”

“THE EYES!”

“What was that?”

Quinn was positively frenzied. There was wrought madness in her eye, and blood on her—she was bleeding. She was clawing herself like a panicked animal.

Besca cut the call and tossed the phone aside, scrambling over and pulling Quinn’s hand away from her arm. “Quinn! Quinn stop! What are you talking about? What eyes?”

Dahlia appeared in the doorway, worry all over her face.

“Towels! Get paper towels and—just grab the first aid kit!”

Dutifully, the older girl ran off. Besca turned back to Quinn, still holding her firmly, desperately trying to calm her down. Eyes? What eyes?

Amygdala Circuit

Enough.

There was a flicker in her vision, like a half-blink, and everything stuttered. Out on the lake, Dahlia and Safie were swimming out again, away from the boat, back towards the buoy. The moon’s reflection seemed like it was under the surface.

Quinnlash frowned. She reached up, gingerly touched one of the horns on her head.

“We…?” she asked, turning back towards Quinn. Her frown vanished, replaced with a tight smile. She giggled, and though it was Quinn’s voice, it was someone else laughing with it. “We’re Quinnlash! Silly. So silly. But that’s better than scared, isn’t it? Feels better. Feels stronger.”

She drew closer again, and the wind and waves shifted to follow her. “Those monsters. So big, so scary, taking from us, turning us into them. But we’re stronger, we’re better, and they know it. I changed that one. The beast from the lake. Changed it to be like us instead. It thinks it can take everything—our friends, our home, our eye—well I took its eye. Stupid thing. Vermin. Worm.”

Quinnlash moved past her, to front, up onto the bow. She stared out at Hovvi, and her hands closed into tiny fists. Quinn’s vision faltered again, flickered. For the briefest of moments the sky was black and the town was fire and ruin and screaming so small and far away but so terrified. And there above it all stood the monster from the lake, a single red eye staring out at them.

Then it was all normal again.

“We’re awake now, Quinnlash,” she said. “So long in the dark. Alone. Locked away. Doors and doors and doors. But now we’re awake, and we’re free, and I’m going to hurt them all. We’re going to teach the monsters to be afraid.”

The wind began to whip up around them. The waves grew choppier, the boat rocked violently but Quinnlash was unmoved. The shadows of Dahlia and Safie were gone, their laughter vanished, and in its place was a sunken groaning, loud and massive. In an explosion of water and steam and vicious roaring, a hand burst up from the lake, black as pitch and streaked with gray metal. It slammed down onto the forested shore. The earth cracked beneath its palm.

And then Quinn was thrust awake.

Amygdala Circuit

Quinnlash stopped kicking. She tilted her head at Quinn, mouth pulled into a little bunch like she didn’t understand her words. Or she was thinking them over. It must have been the latter because eventually she did answer.

“I just talked. It was wise to listen.”

She looked back out at the water, took a long deep breath that she never seemed to let go, but still managed to speak as easily anyway. “I like this one. It’s nice. Warm.”

Hopping down off the railing, she made her way over to Quinn. Her steps were light, bouncing; they left little black footprints behind like she’d stepped in ink, but they faded away before each next step.

“It isn’t perfect. I don’t think the moon’s supposed to be there, but the water’s meant to be black, isn’t it? I always thought so. Prettier, this way, anyway.” She came up before Quinn, looking up at her with wide, colorless eyes. She pointed to the cliffs in the distance. “I left the house out.”

Sure enough, following her finger Quinn could see the Loughvein house was gone.

“Doesn’t belong here. Rotten place, full of rotten people. Hated it. What they did to us. What they took away. Take, take, take. They’re takers. Just like the monsters, Quinnlash.”

She spun around on her heel, marching off to the back of the boat. “No takers, here. Only good people. Friends. We deserve friends, Quinnlash.” Out in the water, the shadowed figures of Dahlia and Safie continued their race to the buoy. “Don’t we deserve friends?”

Amygdala Circuit

Sleep came to her softly, like turning her head from one side of the pillow to the next. One moment Quinn was shuddering, palms ground into her eyes, so tired, and the next—

Morning rose over the lake. Black waves lapped gently at the boat’s sides, rocking it just slightly enough to be soothing. Dawn warmed the cliffs, yellows and oranges chased deep blues from the sky. Birdsong. The distinct feeling that, far away on the shore, there were people talking.

The moon’s reflection painted the water.

Quinn lay on a spread of towels, it took a few blinks for the world to come into focus for her. To one side was a cooler, open and stuffed full with bottles and cans and pouches of melonberry juice. A sweet memory ghosted across her tongue, gone in an instant. On the other side, the fishing poles stood in their loops, strings drawn in. Their hooks were gone, replaced with dull weights upon which the bait could rest and be nibbled without fear of injury.

In the distance there was splashing. Laughter. Two silhouettes swam a short distance away, splashing at one another, racing out to a buoy some ways away. Further, on the shores of a forest along the lake’s rim, something moved. White fur and bone, gone into the thicket.

Quinnlash

She wasn’t alone, and she could feel the moment that became true, like a cold breeze through the warmth of the morning. Behind her, sitting on the railing was a small figure, and as the shadows slipped from it rinsed dirt, and it turned to her she saw—

Herself.

Quinnlash, as she had appeared the last time. Ten or eleven, eyes black rather than shining yellow. Her face still bore the thin lines of blood from her head, where the glinting, modium horns which had sprouted from her hair had grown ever so slightly. Perhaps an inch or two taller, they caught the light much clearer, and at their tips they seemed to be starting to split.

She still looked almost bored. Her feet kicked absently overboard.

“Hello, again.”

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia listened to Quinn as she stumbled through her words, stuttered to get her thoughts running, and then failed to keep them controlled as they devolved into pitiful ramblings again. She listened, each word a drop of water in the pot. She thought, and the words simmered, and the pot began to boil.

She stood there for a long time.

“What…” she muttered, and it was all she managed.

Almost in a daze, Dahlia made her way back to the bed. She lowered herself down, legs suddenly weak, stomach suddenly churning and for a moment she tasted acid in her throat, threatening to drag her breakfast up with it.

It was like Quinn was a thousand miles away, but she could still hear her crying silently.

What did they do to you? she wanted to ask, but part of her already had an idea. The pieces were small, but they were many. The water. The doors. The panic. Something terrible had been done to Quinnlash. Not once, not twice, but every day of her life. Every day. Her mom and dad…

It's gray there.

“You—” she started again, and then swallowed the rising lump in her throat. Laying back helped the nausea, so she settled down beside Quinn, stared up at the ceiling. “You’re not in trouble, Quinn. You…you were never in trouble, and you never have to say sorry for any of that stuff again. Not to me, not to Besca, not to anyone.”

She felt a grimace twist her face up. Anger did the same to her insides. “And if your parents have a problem with that, they can write a letter, and you and I can shoot it out the airlock,” she said, and looked over at Quinn, face still buried in her hands. “I'm not gonna let anyone lock you away. Ever. Never again. Do you hear me, Quinn? Never. Again.”

Amygdala Circuit

It started alright. Quinn slowly unfurled, inching closer. Just a bit more and she could pull her in, hold her, hope it would help. Then she started speaking again, almost a babble and nearly incomprehensible. Dahlia thought it was nonsense at first, that would make the most sense. A touch from the circuit lingering on a nascent mind. It happened now and then, that someone went in and was changed forever, sometimes too far.

But Quinn hadn’t been changed. Not really. It might have been the invasion that did this to her, but, if she thought about it, dug through the exhaustion and the memories—terrible, leave them be, you shouldn’t—she could recall that Quinn had been peculiar even on the boat. Water, water, she’d mentioned it then, too. Asked if it was always so sweet. Safie…Safie had thought it was a joke. She had, too. And when she’d asked for the juice, how frantically she’d asserted that she wouldn’t, if it had belonged to Dahlia.

“It smells like the water from home.”

She sniffed the air. It just smelled like air. What did—

“Open the door! Open the door, oh god, please, open it, open the door!”

This time Dahlia did move. She sprung up from the bed, dashing over to the door and throwing it open. She whirled back to Quinn, concerned, frightful.

“Quinn,” she said, almost desperate. “What’s going on? What are you afraid of?”

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia jolted as the water was thrown from her hand, yelped when the glass shattered against the wall. Quinn fell into a panic, curled like a cornered animal and let out a terrible scream. Still sitting there, Dahlia hunched away, winced, tried to keep it from sinking any deeper into her. She didn’t leave, though. Part of her did want to, but that part was weak. So much of her was weak, and afraid, and helpless, and if she left Quinn now she’d be no different than she’d been a week ago. She’d be a failure. Still.

And a bad friend.

She couldn’t be that anymore.

Dahlia scooted over, closer. She took Quinn’s hands gently from above her head, guided them low and held them tight.

“Quinn—Quinn, hey.” she kept her voice soft, calm, as best she could. "You don’t have to drink it. You don’t. I didn’t—I didn’t know. I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise. I’m sorry. Please, you have to relax. You have to, you’ll hurt yourself. Please.”

Amygdala Circuit

“Yeah. Yeah, you did great, Quinn.”

Dahlia hefted Quinn up to her feet, helped her stand, but kept an arm around her so the girl could lean as heavily as she needed. She looked back to Besca and Follen, not lingering so long on the latter. “I’m gonna get her back to the dorm,” she said.

They hobbled away, Quinn still sobbing, and vanished into the hallway.

The instant the doors shut, Besca whirled on Follen. She seized him by the collar with a barely-restrained snarl, incensed by the fact that even that didn’t elicit more than a cocked brow from him. He wasn’t even looking at her, the rat fucking bastard.

“She wasn’t ready!” she shouted. “She wasn’t ready you son of a bitch, she wasn’t! We should have run sims!”

Hands pulled her away, bodies squeezed in between them. She let him go, let herself be spaced away as he walked closer to the Savior.

Ichor stained the floor, pooling into large drains while janitorial machines scrubbed up the residue. It leaked from the wounds Quinn had rent into the arms, stained the modium claws on its fingers.

“Did she touch her face?” he asked.

Besca shook the hands off her. “Fucking what?”

“Her face. While she was phasing, she didn’t touch her face. Not once—I didn’t see it, did you? No. Just clutched her arms.” He shook his head, not disappointed, but confused. “She didn’t scream, either. No indication she was in pain.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Come here, Besca.”

Hands still wound into shaking fists, she walked over to him. His head was craned up, and a curious smile crept onto his lips. She followed his gaze to the Savior’s slumped face, to the mouth limply agape, wet with dark slaver and hot breath.

And ichor.

So much of it, dripping down its teeth, down its chin and into the drains. It stared down at them vacantly, red eye dim.

Red eye.

Eye.

One of its eyes was gone.

Besca gasped loud, almost staggering back. Gone, the socket was empty—no, not just empty, burst. It was as though the eye had exploded, not a trace of it remained.

“Interesting,” Follen muttered. “So very interesting.”

---

---

They’d gotten Quinn back into her own clothes and into the lift without issue. The ride was just as quiet, broken by the occasional sob.

The dorm was still empty. Dahlia kept a firm and steady hold on Quinn, guiding her to the room beside Besca’s. She laid her down on the bed, flicked on a light on the nightstand.

“It’s over, Quinn. You did it. You did good. Just relax. Breathe.” She vanished for a moment, in the bleary dark between blinks, and returned with a glass of water. “Try to drink something. That helped me my first few times.”

Amygdala Circuit

“Quinn? Quinn, hey? Hun, you there? Comms, hey, you, check the—why can’t she hear me? Quinn? Quinnlash”

Besca’s tablet erupted with flashing lights and frantic beeping. She tossed it aside. Something was wrong. This was done. Enough. “Get her out! Now! Get her out!”

“She hasn’t phased yet. Take her out and we’ll have to put her right back in.”

“We’re not putting her in ever you fuck! Do you hear me? Ever!”

“Then she goes home!” Follen said, and there was almost a sharp edge to his voice. Almost. “Then she goes home,” he said, calmer. “And everything you’re afraid of, everything you think that means. It does. And more. And so much worse. Leave her in, Besca. Or let her go.”

Every muscle in her face strained not to twist into fury, or devastation. Her throat clenched not to scream. She tapped her earpiece again, desperate.

“Quinn! Quinn!”

Quinnlash

Buried name

What more can they take? How much more will we let them take?

It felt wrong. This power, this being, it felt so wrong and inhuman. She knew, sitting there—sitting where? Which seat was hers, really, the chair or the wall?—it was told to her in the static that she was loaned this. Strange things, shared. Evolution, parsed and priced, offered and imposed. She would not take so greedily, so freely, and be ignored. Great eyes, invisible eyes saw her, Quinnlish, I am seen and I find their gazes repulsive.

Hate them Quinnlash

It’s what they deserve

And it was, wasn’t it? Her home, all of it, gone. Burned. Buried they buried it all of them. For what? She knew what, she’d been told that as well. She’d been told, and it doesn’t matter why. Do you hear, Quinnlash? It doesn’t matter. Their reasons. Their wants. They are monsters. They are vermin. They are weakness and they would take from us.

Hate them, Quinnlash

Quinnlash

Quinn

“—my voice.” like a knife piercing the static. A hand reaching down into the water. “Listen to my voice.”

Especially in the dark.

Dahlia’s voice filled Quinn’s ears. Filled her mind. Everything quieted, the static, the thrumming, the voice. All of it was gone. It was as quiet as the dorm. They were as close as they had been, collapsed onto the floor.

“I’m with you. I’m here. Listen to me. It’s like we’re in a tunnel, isn’t it? Do you see the end? Take my hand, pretend for me. Take my hand, we’ll get there together.”

Below, the beeping stopped. The monitors settled. Dahlia stood beside Besca, the woman’s comm piece in her ear. She stood at the base of the Savior, looking up, into Quinn’s eyes. She smiled. It was thin, and as fragile as the one Quinn had worn that morning. But it was there. Still there.

“Let’s go, Quinn. Almost done.”